


Comfort Your Heart

by Verlaine



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 16:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13838373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verlaine/pseuds/Verlaine
Summary: Chris Larabee died three years ago to the day, and Vin was gone again.





	Comfort Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Jojo for the beta, and words of encouragement. It is always appreciated.

The morning was barely a hint of brightness over the top of the trees when I woke up and rolled over, my arm reaching across the bed to find the warmth of Vin. He wasn't there, and the blankets had already gone cool.

I'd hoped for different, but hadn't expected it. I let my head fall back on the pillow and just lay there, watching the sky outside the window slowly turn from slate blue to silver-pink. I didn't bother to go look for him. Vin would've been saddled up and headed out long before first light, high-tailing off to lick his wounds. If he didn't want to be found, I wouldn't be the one to find him.

The air had a sharp little edge to it that warned of autumn coming soon, and got me to shivering. Instead of pulling the blankets back around me, I drug myself up and put on my union suit before I shuffled out to the kitchen, not sure how I wanted to face the rest of the day. The red-eye on the shelf by the stove was the first thing that caught my eye. It would've been mighty tempting to take the bottle back to bed and let myself go under.

Chris Larabee died three years ago to the day, and Vin was gone again.

It still hurts today to think on it. They were just three fool drunk cowboys, loaded for bear, and if Chris had been sober he'd have handled them without even breaking a sweat. But he wasn't, and he didn't, and when the smoke cleared all three of them were dead and Chris was lying on the boardwalk outside the saloon, his blood soaking into the planks under the chair he'd been sitting in. Nathan tried, God love him, but a bullet had blown through the big artery in Chris's thigh, and he bled dry even as Nathan was screaming for Josiah to fetch a hot iron from the blacksmith's.

It shook the rest of us pretty bad. Hell, it shook the whole town. For a man who took some pride in being the bad element, as Mary likes to say, Chris made himself plenty of friends. A lot of what Four Corners is today came from Chris just plain refusing to let the wrong thing be done, even if he didn't give a damn one way or the other for himself. We all of us cried at the funeral, even Ezra wiping his eyes with his silk pocket-square and muttering about the infernal dust.

Me and Vin took it the worst. I'd known Chris the longest, but Vin hadn't never lost him before, so it hit him harder.

I loved Chris before Sarah caught his eye, and I loved him after. But even with everything there was between us two, she was what he wanted, and Chris always went after what he wanted like a lobo wolf stoking up for winter. What I was useful for was scratching an itch, and watching his back, and making him laugh. He figured I'd still do that as a partner, even when he had a wife and child.

He wasn't wrong about me watching his back or making him laugh, but I drew the line at defiling the marriage bed. Didn't often get up on my hind legs against Chris, but on this I wouldn't budge. Sarah was a damn good woman, and I loved their boy like he was my own. Couldn't stop my cock from twitching just at the sight of Chris walking into a room, but I was raised better than to slap a running brand on my partner's stock. Told him he'd made his choice and expected me to live with it, so he could do the same.

Being Chris, he tried to change my mind now and again. He'd put on his oldest pants, the ones that hugged all of him like a glove, and sit with his legs just far enough apart I could see everything I was missing. He'd look up at me from under his hat, and give me that little shame-the-devil smile of his, full of teeth and dare-you. Chris always liked to ride close on the edge, whether with me or Ella Gaines or some low-down working girl that took his fancy. If he'd married Ella, I might not've been so particular, but I respected Sarah. I loved Chris, but I respected her, and I wouldn't sully her just to let Chris have a chance to hooraw a little.

Remembering how Chris used to stand right where I was, looking at that bottle on the shelf, got me thinking again about the burn of it going down, and the way it would smooth out all the sharp edges after a swallow or two. The need to have the memories go all soft and far away was strong as the grinding of an old scar, but in the end I let the bottle be. That wasn't the first time I'd waked up alone, and it likely wouldn't be the last. I spent enough years around Chris to figure out getting drunk don't do you any favors: whiskey won't wash your troubles away, and next day you still have to deal with them, hung over and puking to boot. Instead, I got the stove fired up to make coffee. Couldn't stomach the thought of grits and eggs yet, but I needed something warm inside.

I pulled on my jacket over my union suit and took my coffee out on the front porch and settled down in the rocking chair, looking out across the pasture to the cottonwoods by the stream. Chris got himself a fine homestead, well-watered rolling land with grass near belly-high on a steer; given time he could've made this one of the best ranches in the state. Peace and prosperity weren't the first things to come to mind when most folks thought of Chris Larabee, but whatever his faults, the man knew horses and he knew horse land. If he'd put in the work he should've, this place would be blooming.

The coffee felt good going down, hot and strong enough to tar a roof with. We did that a lot, me 'n Chris: sit quiet of a morning over a cup of coffee, letting the day start in its own time. Whether it was by a campfire on the trail, or in a saloon, or in Sarah's kitchen, those mornings were good for us. Especially once Sarah was gone, when there would be days on end when Chris wasn't sober, or hell, even in his right mind. Somehow sharing a cup of coffee could ease him a bit when nothing else did, not even the liquor.

I don't think Vin ever saw Chris as clear as I did, but then he never had the time. Wasn't even three years between when they first set eyes on each other and when Chris died. Vin loved Chris, drunken bastard that he was. Belonged to him heart and soul before they got half-way up the street to the cemetery to rescue Nathan. I figure the 'body' part took maybe another day after that. I made the mistake of telling folks about Chris losing his family, and Vin always saw him through that lens. It wasn't pity—Vin isn't that much of a fool—but it gave a reason for some things there wouldn't have been an excuse for otherwise.

In a lot of ways, Vin's tougher than I am. He let Chris be what he was, looked his dark side straight in the eye and never let any of it scare him off. Even when Chris made a jackass of himself sniffing after Ella Gaines, Vin didn't run out, though I'd say he had every reason. To be fair though, Chris pulled himself together a lot for Vin. He'd still go on a tear now and again, drinking until any normal person might've died from whiskey poisoning, but day to day his moods weren't so black and he kept his temper mostly on a curb-rein.

Funny thing, I never got jealous. In the back of my mind, I'd always figured eventually Chris would come back to me, once he got a handle on his grief. Provided he didn't get himself killed first, of course. To have him latch onto Vin that quick and that solid, with me right there in front of him—that cut deep. But I could see Vin was better for Chris than I was. I let him hurt me too easy, and gave in when I should've pushed back. And around me Chris could never forget the past. I'd always be his old pard, who'd watch his back and make him laugh, but the shadow of Sarah was going to stand between us as long as we lived. 

After the funeral, I was a mite surprised when Vin didn't just up and vanish into the wilderness. It was like watching a lost soul; he couldn't settle, but he couldn't stay away neither. He kept drifting around, Eagle Bend to Red Rock, over to the Seminole village and then back here again. Miss Nettie tried putting him to work, and so did J.D., who'd stepped up real fine as sheriff, but it seemed like something in Vin was too broken to take hold of what was offered. 

Might be I could've done something for him then, but I was feeling tore right open myself. Nothing I had to say in those days would've made things better, so I kept quiet. 

The first anniversary was bad. Vin and me both drank ourselves blind and ended up waling the tar out of each other back of the grain exchange. Can't remember why to this day. Damn good thing we were both so drunk we couldn't hardly see straight, otherwise one of us might've been hurt bad. Woke up the next day in my bed in the boarding house, and it was pretty clear what we'd been up to, even if the memories were fogged up by whiskey.

When Vin opened his eyes, the look on his face near to killed me. He thought he was with Chris. He thought he had it back, thought everything about the past year had been nothing but a bad dream. Everything about him was soft and still, and his smile was warm as sunshine on the best day of summer.

If ever a man looked at me like he hated me, it was the moment when Vin recognized who I was. Have to say, I was right glad our guns and knives were tangled up in our clothes over by the door. I'm not sure I'd be alive right now if Vin had been able to put his hands on a weapon that first moment he really knew me. He jumped out of my bed like it was on fire, and yanked on his clothes without ever taking his eyes off me. 

"Vin," I said quietly, "don't."

"Shut up, Buck." His voice was like broken steel. "You ain't takin' any more of what's mine."

He was out the door before I could think of anything to say to that. Didn't see hide nor hair of him for eight months. Truth is, I was pretty sure we'd never see him again. I never told the boys, but I figured he'd gone off to get himself killed, just like Chris had tried to all those years.

In those eight months, the rest of us kind of found a new balance. I think maybe outside of me only Josiah really understood how much Vin's pain had kept us unsettled. Might sound hard, but without Vin wandering around like Chris's ghost, it felt like the rest of us could get on with our lives without feeling like we were abandoning him.

Ezra went off to parts unknown for a few weeks, and I know I ain't the only one who thought he'd never be back either. But then one day he got off the stage wearing a fancy new coat, with the deed to the Standish Tavern in his pocket. He told us some wild stories about how he'd got it away from Maude that had everybody falling over laughing, but I noticed the smile never reached his eyes, no matter how funny the story was. Under all those frilly shirts and fine manners, Ezra's got some sand in his craw, and I reckon he finally decided to use it on his mother. Normally, I wouldn't feel right about that, but Maude Standish ain't nothing like my mother and I'd say I got the better end of _that_ deal.

Nathan finally married Rain, and J.D. proposed to Casey. I'd been helping the kid out, putting in time as deputy when he needed one, but once they were hitched I decided to spend more time out here and let J.D. run things pretty much on his own. He was a man grown, and didn't need me looking over his shoulder all the time.

Chris willed his horses to Vin, and the land to me. Made sense at the time: Vin still had that damn price on his head. Wasn't no point in leaving him anything he couldn't take with him if he had to run. I'm not the horseman Chris was, but I tried to do right by this place and Vin's stock. That summer, I swallowed down my pride enough to make a deal with Guy Royal to get one of the mares covered, and she dropped the prettiest roan filly I ever set eyes on. Chris would've loved that little beauty, and I made a promise—wasn't sure if it was to Vin or Chris or myself— to train her up to do him proud. 

When Vin came back that summer, it was a shock to all of us. He seemed older than his years, even quieter than he'd been before. I thought at first he'd made his peace with losing Chris, but as time went on, I come to see it was simply that he'd stopped fighting his pain. Chris had let his grief become his heart's blood; the only difference was that Vin didn't feel the need to make sure those around him shared that pain. 

He apologized to me one morning for running out, and I told him I didn't blame him. By then, I didn't—I'd had some time to let my pain season too. Slow and careful, we got back to being friends, and slow and careful Vin became part of the town again. He spent a lot of time helping out Miss Nettie, though he never took her up on the offer to live at her ranch. After a time, he started to ride over here now and then, and take an interest in the horses. He always seemed a mite skittish, as if being out here was as much pain as pleasure—and he never set foot in the cabin—but he kept coming back. I knew how he felt: there were still days when I thought if I turned my head quick enough I'd see Chris standing on the porch, or putting a horse through its paces in the corral. 

I knew better than to push him. I left a bedroll and blankets out in the barn for him to bed down if he felt like it, and took to having morning coffee out here in the rocking chair. By year's end, he'd come as far as sitting on the bottom step of the porch.

When J.D. and Casey asked, all bashful-like, if I'd mind if they named their boy Chris, I told them not to. A child shouldn't be weighed down with a name so heavy with blood and smoke and anger. Asked them to call him Adam instead. I rocked Adam Dunne's cradle the same way I rocked Adam Larabee's, and if Casey caught me wiping my eyes once or twice, she was kind enough not to let on.

When the time came for Josiah to baptize young Adam, me, Vin, Nathan and Ezra put on our Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and in front of the whole town laid our hands on the boy and swore we'd stand by his parents and see he was brought up right. All four of us were so choked up we could barely speak, but I don't believe truer words were ever said in that church. 

The second anniversary of Chris's death, me 'n Vin ended up in my room again. Only this time we were both mostly sober. After young Adam was born, I'd pretty much stopped drinking hard liquor, and couldn't help thinking sometimes that Chris had done the same once _his_ boy came along. Vin had had a few, but it wasn't like before; he knew who he was and he knew who I was when he knocked on the door and asked a little shyly if he could come in. 

I woke up alone the next morning and couldn't help wondering if it was better or worse that Vin snuck away in the dead of night. At least this way he wasn't looking at me like he wanted me dead; on the other hand, it meant he still couldn't look at me in the cold light of day at all.

I figured he'd packed up and hit the trail again, but when I went down to the saloon, Ezra passed on the word that Vin had headed over to Miss Nettie's for a spell, and would be back to town when he was caught up on his chores. That cheered me more than I wanted to admit, not just because it meant he was sticking around, but because he wanted me to know he hadn't run out. 

I damn near made a big mistake with Ezra that morning. Looking back, I must've been grinning like a fool when I brought over coffee for us both. Ezra thanked me, and then sat back, watching me with that bland half-smile I had come to know meant he was thinking hard enough to blame near set his hat on fire.

"Buck," he finally said, after about half a cup of coffee," you're spending more time out at our late companion Mr. Larabee's homestead these days, are you not?"

I have to say I wasn't paying as much attention as I ought to have. Part of my mind was still up in my room, remembering the smooth softness of Vin's back, and the smell of sage in his hair.

"Not sure I'm ready to move out there to stay, but those horses won't do Vin any good if somebody doesn't keep an eye on them. And it seems every time I turn around there's another shingle come loose or a mare with a thrown shoe." 

Ezra showed a flash of gold tooth. "Have you considered asking Mr. Tanner to take residence? It might solve most of both your problems."

I blinked at him. "Come again, Ez?"

Ezra set down his coffee and leaned across the table. "Mr. Wilmington, I do not ordinarily meddle in other people's affairs. I have more than enough of my own problems to worry about. But I do consider both you and Vin my friends, so I will offer a word of advice. Vin often gives the impression of feeling cooped up in town. He needs work to occupy him, and a place to live without too many walls pressing in on him. You need a ranch hand who enjoys his solitude. If you two can come to some arrangement . . . "

It felt a bit disloyal, but I had to say it.

"Vin still won't go in the cabin."

Ezra nodded, like he'd known it all along. "Memories, good and ill, take their toll on present pleasures." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "For both your sakes, you need to think on this seriously. As far as I know, I was the only person awake during the night, but that will not always be the case."

I opened my mouth to ask what in tarnation Ezra's sleeping habits had to do with anything, and then stopped dead. He wasn't winking, or giving me one of those smarmy smiles men share, but he knew. I thought back, trying to remember how much noise we'd made, but looking at Ezra, I could tell that didn't really matter.

He _knew_.

There were a lot of things I could have said right then, and remembering some of them makes me ashamed to this day. But by the grace of God they all tangled up in my mouth enough that none of them came out, though I imagine Ezra must have read at least some of what I was thinking on my face.

"As I said, I do not meddle in other people's affairs," he repeated, and there was hard frost in his voice.

By then I had my tongue—and some common sense—back. "Never expected you would," I told him. "I'll think on it. You're right: I could use a full time hand, and Vin needs somewhere he can settle a mite. And if I had some company, I'd feel more inclined to do my fair share of the work out there too."

Ezra touched his hat brim and grinned at me, and I got the strange feeling I'd passed some kind of a test.

I pondered for a while on how to make the offer to Vin. I didn't want him to get the idea I was trying to hog-tie him, or even worse, offer him charity. Still, he needed to know he was welcome. Even if I never touched him again, even if we were nothing but friends, what he had been to Chris meant Vin was always welcome any place I had a roof over my head. I figured Chris had wanted that place to be a home for him and Vin, as much as the world would let it be. And Vin wasn't Chris: for him, sooner or later the good memories would come to outweigh the bad. 

In the end, I didn't need to do much of anything. 

A few nights later, I was banking the fire before bedding down when Vin knocked on the cabin door. We'd had supper out on the porch earlier on—a prairie hen Vin had bagged, and some beans and potatoes I'd fixed up—and I'd figured Vin would head over to the barn like always. He'd stayed for near on a week, helping me patch the barn roof and working with two of the new colts. One of them looked to have the makings of a good cowpony, and over supper we'd talked about whether we'd do better selling him in town, or taking him over to the auction in Eagle Bend.

I'd joked that if he was as good as Vin thought, we might be best off buying a few head of cattle and keeping him.

When I opened the door, Vin looked up at me a bit sheepishly. "Kinda chilly out there in the barn tonight," he said with a little half-smile.

Fool me, I was about to offer him another blanket or two when I realized what he was asking.

"Could come out there with you," I said, trying to sound casual. "Or you could come in. Stove's still nice and warm." 

Vin took a deep breath. "Reckon I could do that."

He stepped over the threshold, skittish as a doe at a watering hole. He froze there for a minute, eyes darting everywhere at once, then shook his head slowly.

"Damn fool," he muttered. "I know he's gone, and—"

"And sometimes it still seems like he's just stepped outside and he'll be back any minute." I knew the feeling all too well.

"Smoking that black tabaccy of his and smiling like he just put a frog in the schoolmarm's bed." Vin's voice wobbled a little, but he was grinning as he said it.

"Said he did that once," I remembered. "Told me you could hear the yippin' and cussin' half a mile away."

Vin started laughing, with a little catch to it like he might cry if he didn't pay attention. "Never saw that side of him," he said wistfully.

"Weren't many that did, even before Sarah died. Chris always held himself kinda close." I turned to the stove. "You want some whiskey?"

Vin shook his head. 

I put my arm around his shoulders and tugged him in. "Bed? We don't need to do nothing but bundle under the blankets." His eyes widened. "Not that I'd say no to more, but it's your choice, pard."

He leaned into me, one hand going up to my cheek. "Between you bein' so damn patient and me being skittish, we might end up old and grey before we get anywhere."

"But we'll be two right spry old men, and fine looking to boot, won't we?"

This time there was no hint of tears in his laughter. "Let's go to bed, Bucklin. Before all we can do is rub rheumatiz liniment on each other and take out our false teeth."

I woke up in the night to find Vin sitting cross-legged on the bed, watching me by the faint light from the embers in the stove.

"You feeling all right?" I asked him, running a hand down his back, just because I could.

"Rode hard and put away wet," he said, stretching and twisting a bit. "Ain't nothing wrong with that."

"But something's on your mind?"

"Buck, are you okay with this?" Vin asked. "Know you and Chris had something, but all I've ever seen is you chasing the ladies. You sure this is what you want?"

I ruffled his hair a little, way I might do with JD. "Oh, I like the ladies. Like 'em just fine. A good woman is a gift from God in every way. And if people notice a man liking the ladies, they don't pay as much attention to anything _else_ he might like.

"But when it comes to how I feel, don't seem to matter much to my cock if it's a man or a woman. When I'm charmed, I'm charmed." 

"Charmed?" His smile was a real, honest-to-God one this time. "Buck, you silver-tongued devil."

"Animal magnetism, just like I keep telling JD." 

Vin pinched my ass, and then one thing led right back to another, and neither of us got much sleep the rest of the night.

After that, Vin started sleeping up in the cabin a couple of nights a week. 

I thought it might mean he was healing, but it don't appear that's true. Not if he still needed to run this morning.

I finished off my coffee and tossed the dregs over the railing. I'd brooded long enough on this. Vin would be back when it suited him, and I had mares to feed, and a filly to get used to a hackamore. 

Before I could get myself up I heard the sound of a rider coming. I'd left my gun inside; it was quiet enough out here that there were days I never put it on at all. Not for the first time, I wondered if I was getting too soft and slow as a rancher.

When the horse came trotting past the cottonwoods, I let out a little breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

It was Vin. 

Whatever had sent him out, he'd come back, a lot sooner than I'd expected. I figured in maybe another two or three years, I might wake up beside him one morning.

He gave me a little wave as he pulled up by the corral. He unsaddled the horse and let him out into the meadow to graze before loping up to the porch. As he came nearer, he slowed down, and I saw something I hadn't seen much of before: Vin Tanner unsure of himself.

"Morning, Buck," he said, shuffling his feet a bit. "Thought you might still be asleep."

I shrugged. "Bed got a mite cold. Coffee's on the stove." I tried not to let all the mixed-up feelings inside me show, but Vin can read people in his own quiet way.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Owe you an apology, Buck. I thought I'd get back sooner."

I wanted to tell him it didn't matter, that I was just happy to have him back any way at all, but I kept my mouth shut. If Chris had taught me anything, it was that letting myself get buffaloed wasn't going to be good for either me or Vin in the long run. 

"Apology accepted. Get your coffee." I held up my cup. 

Vin didn't even try to hide his relief from me as he took the cup and went inside. I felt myself relax a little more. If it mattered to him how I felt, just maybe things would work out this time.

When he brought the coffee out, I moved to sit on the step and he settled beside me, close enough I could smell smoke on his hair. It wasn't exactly like tobacco, more grassy, and I wondered if he'd been smoking some of that herb the Mexican folks have.

We sat there with our coffee, and a few minutes later Vin put his hand on my leg. He didn't look at me, just kept watching the horses out in the meadow.

"Was thinking last night, over supper. I been grieving for Chris longer than I ever knew him. That don't seem right somehow."

I set my hand on his. "Grief takes its own time, Vin. You can't make it come and go like calling a dog."

He shook his head. "The Comanche say a man shouldn't walk in both the spirit world and the human world. You let yourself wander between them too long and you kin lose your way. You stop seeing what's real and good in our world, because the spirit world is always in front of your eyes.

"That's what I've let happen to me. Spent so much time grieving for Chris I couldn't see the good I had with you." He looked down, and I could see his cheek go pink. "You know at first I was with you because it was . . ." 

"The only way you had left to be close to Chris?" 

He nodded, and turned even pinker.

"I knew, Vin. Was a little of that for me, too. At first."

He turned to face me, blue eyes deep and serious. "You deserve better, Bucklin. Better than a man who's left a big part of himself in another man's grave."

"I didn't stop loving Chris while he grieved for Sarah. Don't expect I'll stop loving you while you grieve for Chris."

"Loving." I watched Vin turn the word over in his mind. "Is that what this is?"

"It's what it is for me. There'll always be a spot in my heart for Chris, just like there will be for Hilda. But I reckon there's plenty of room for you too, if you want it."

After a long minute, Vin looked away, out across the meadow again. "I went out this morning to ride up to the ridge yonder. Lit some sage and sweetgrass as the sun came up, and said goodbye to Chris. Let him go on to the spirit world, so I could come back here." He sighed. "Might still be times when I need to get away for a spell." His eyes drifted to the corral he'd helped build. "Might need to let the memories soften some."

"You go when you need to. Long as you remember you can always come back."

Vin's hand turned under mine, fingers lacing with mine and holding on. "Always," he said, and it sounded like a promise.

We sat together, neither of us saying anything, while the sun drew higher, lighting the cottonwoods down by the stream up in gold. After a while, Vin took out his mouth organ and started playing quietly. I recognized the tune, and found myself humming along.

_Oh, Sarry, Sarry, the days have gone by_   
_And I am no longer alone_   
_I've found a new sweetheart to comfort my heart_   
_Oh, Sarry, the wanderer's home_


End file.
